Light Reading – Open Sores: Are Telcos on a Collision Course With Vendors?

It is already clear that open source and the technologies surrounding it will up-end parts of the telecom industry. What remains uncertain is whether it can address some of the particular needs of the telecom sector, and just how much upheaval it will cause. The prospect of AT&T as a global technology vendor — or even a telco building its own networks from scratch — seems far-fetched, after all. “Operators are not systems providers and don’t have the skill sets to develop things for a global market,” says Bengt Nordström, the CEO of the Northstream market research and consulting business. “And operators still like to have vendors to point to when something goes wrong.”

Bengt Nordström, CEO at consultancy Northstream, chimes with Mackenzie on revenue share from connectivity – setting it at 10-15 percent of the total – but suggests the opportunity for operators, in general, may have been over-stated, or misread. Even the largest and most advanced can look forward to taking only five percent of their revenues, [...]Read more